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Football is an impressively dangerous sport and every single player knows there’s a chance they might not be able to walk off of the field whenever they walk onto it, and two years ago, we were reminded just how brutal it can be when Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier was carted off of the gridiron following a severe spinal injury.
The initial diagnosis was incredibly grim, as some doctors thought he’d never be able to walk again and most medical experts ruled out the possibility that he’d ever be able to return to football.
To paraphrase Paul Rudd in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the best thing to do when life gives you lemons is to say “fuck you” to the lemons in question and Shazier did precisely that, as he quickly set his sights on rehabbing and it didn’t take long for him to return to the weight room.
Shazier surprised everyone when he managed to walk onto the stage (albeit with a little assistance) at the 2018 NFL Draft and he’s continued to document his impressive progress since then.
Back in June, he made it very clear that he intends to return to football at some point, and based on the evidence at hand, the notion doesn’t seem as far-fetched as it did when we learned about his initial diagnosis.
It’s been almost two years to the day since Shazier was injured, and on Thursday, the sidelined Steeler marked the occasion by posting a goosebump-inducing video on Instagram to show how far he’s come since then.
If this doesn’t motivate you to get off your ass today and do something productive with your life then I don’t know what will.